Monday, July 29, 2013

RevGalBookPals: The Fourth Gospel: Tales of Jewish Mystic

Confession: I do not hurry out and read books that have (I
assume) premises with which I do not agree. I don’t read books that argue
against the ordination of women, for example, or posit theories on specific
literal signs of the apocalypse. I don’t have the time nor the blood pressure
medication. (I do read books about other religions/belief systems to gain
insight and knowledge.)

However, I do occasionally read books that I know will push
me in my own faith journey and experience with God. This was DEFINITELY my
experience with John Shelby Spong’s new book, The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic.* I purchased
the book to read as part of my preparation for next year’s Narrative
Lectionary, the gospel section of which will focus on John. My experience with
Spong has been that he usually writes a little more than I can swallow, but my
tastes are still

expanded (so to speak).

The Fourth Gospel,
however, was beyond the challenge I expected. I was prepared to run a mental
marathon, but once on Spong’s track… I discovered this work to be an Ironman
event. I’m still panting- days later.

I hesitated to do another year of the Narrative Lectionary
because I have very mixed feelings about the gospel according to John. Spong
neatly sums up some of his prior objections to this gospel account and I agreed
with this assessment:

Throughout most of my
professional career I was not drawn to the Fourth Gospel; indeed I found it
almost repellent. This gospel present, I believed, a Jesus whose humanity was
no longer intact. John’s Jesus claimed pre-existence- that is, he said he came
to this earth from another life in another place. He was portrayed as
possessing clairvoyance- that is, he knew about people’s lives and their pasts
before he met them. He was ever said to know what they were thinking while he
was talking to them. The Jesus of John’s gospel also seemed to endure
crucifixion without suffering… Because this book was thought to have spelled
out “orthodox Christianity”, John’s gospel also helped to fuel such dreadful
events in Christian history as heresy hunts and the Inquisition.” (19)

Exactly. I have always struggled with how “magic” Jesus
seemed in John. Spong argues that this representation has stemmed from a
chronic and willful misinterpretation of the origin of this gospel, its reason
for being, and its mystical nature. Mysticism isn’t magic- it’s about a greater
and broader understanding that cannot be attained through any literal
application or interpretation.

Spong writes that the Fourth Gospel has been understood as
an anti-Semitic polemic precisely because centuries of readers have not been
trained to recognize the symbolism of the book and its specific Jewish
character and characters. He makes this argument persuasively, but not always
convincingly (to me).

Keep in mind that the
followers of Jesus in the Johannine community were themselves overwhelmingly
Jews. This talk of “the Jews” in the text of the Fourth Gospel did not mean
ethnic Jews for that would have included the community itself. It meant rather
those Jews who were the synagogue leaders and thus the people who had
excommunicated the followers of Jesus. This split shaped the Johannine
community dramatically and not surprisingly it also shaped the gospel narrative
that this community produced as that text journey toward its final form. (33)

Spong’s
exposition of the Fourth Gospel as a mysticism is rooted in his revelation that
John is not writing a historical account, but a theological framework for how
the Johannine community can go forward. Many contemporary Christians have moved
to a place of understanding the gospels as non-historical accounts, but I am
not certain how many are prepared to accept that they are non-literal accounts.
In particular, I do not know how it would be received in my current context if
I put forth that everything in the Fourth Gospel is symbolic and did not literally happen at any point in the
life of Jesus. These latter
two points are Spong’s.

One cannot be mystical
in one’s approach to God and still be literal about the symbols one uses for
God. Indeed the very idea of the mystical means that words cannot capture it.
Mysticism expands words beyond their normal limits and calls the mystic into
the ultimate experience of wordlessness. The best that words can do is point
beyond themselves to a new reality… Literalism suggests that words, which are
only pointers, can in fact be made concrete, thus establishing assumptions that
can never be demonstrated. Literalism commits us to the presumption that any
religious form can not only capture truth, but can explain it fully… Literalism
is thus always the enemy of faith, which is ultimately the opposite of
certainty. (72)

I appreciate the wisdom in this passage. I want to believe
that I embrace its truth. Then, I consider what Spong will go on to say- that
the resurrection of Lazarus is symbolic, the person of Judas is symbolic, the
healings are symbolic, and even the resurrection account of Jesus’ own self is
not literal. Suddenly I am wondering, with Pilate, “What is truth?”

This gospel is not about God becoming human,
about God putting on flesh and masquerading as a human being; it is about the
divine appearing in the human and calling the human to a new understanding of
what divinity means. It is about bring God out of the sky and redefining God as
the ultimate dimension of the human. It is about the spirit transcending the
limits of the flesh, not in some pious or religious sense, but in opening the
flesh to all that it means to be human. It about seeing Jesus as the doorway
into a new consciousness, which is also a doorway into God, who might be
perceived as a universal consciousness. (77)

I have not even covered half of the book yet. Spong’s
development of the characters and stories of John as symbols is fascinating,
but I remained somewhat skeptical. The question would be then, in Spong-ian
analysis, am I skeptical because I am unwilling to embrace the ultimate light?
Am I willing to accept the vulnerability of trust in a non-literal account of
Jesus and allow the Spirit to move me from self-consciousness into
God-consciousness, into connection with the God of all being? Do I have the
courage to be one with God in the way that Jesus was and in the way that Jesus promised
to his followers?

I don’t know, but I do know that this book gave me a lot to
think about. This might not be for your adult study group (or it might be), but
I recommend it if your Johannine diet or exercise regime needs variety or
expanding.

I purchased this book through iBooks and all citations are
from that version.

* Full disclosure: I
believe John Shelby Spong is related to RGBP Director Martha Spong, but I am
not sure how and Martha does not choose or influence what I review in this
space. She had no prior knowledge of this selection nor has she influenced the
review in any way.

3 comments:

I remember one of my friends remarking that Jack Spong doesn't 'show his work,' And sometimes Jack's sheer genius is because he does approach the whole of Christianity as a mystical faith. I wouldn't worry if you can't take all of his book in. But the point of all of Jack's books is to open us to something that we have never touched upon before. I am going to pick this one up fairly soon because I need something new to approach John with. Thanks for this review, Julia.

Bishop Spong is indeed my Cousin Jack. Kathrynzj and I got to hear him speak about the book last week when he gave a series of lectures near here. I haven't read it yet, so I can't comment about the writing, but hearing him lecture particularly on the lamb imagery in John's gospel was fascinating. I always find he pushes my thinking, and I go a long way with him, although I am a believer in the Resurrection in a different way than he expresses his impressions of it. From my point of view, he has a deep faith, but a very, very low Christology. Maybe that's why UCC folks like him so much; many of us have that, too. (But not me so much anymore. Presbyterian influences, I guess.)